A Ceann Comhairle,
I want to take the time today to express my observations from my engagement and considerations on the issue of homelessness. This is a snapshot of my experience and thinking, I would recommend to other members of the House to consider the same.
Camden Street, Harcourt Street, George’s Street, Smock Alley.
No bells from the churches, no urban foxes, no first snowflakes.
Just the boom-boom of a bass, somewhere in the distance.
Rats skittering, across sodden blankets, beds of needles.
On our journey, people laughing, having the craic.
Making the most of their night out, under Christmas lights, strung high on streets, over strung-out people.
On Grafton Street, a Gucci sign beams over the remnants of humanity.
Only ‘remnants’ is the wrong word.
Because what I discovered that night with Christy Burke was the richness of humanity.
Both in the team who do this, night after night.
And, signally, in the men and women, swaddled in their blue sleeping-bags, to whom they bring not only food, but company, comfort.
And above all the message: We recognise your dignity. With us you have an ear, a voice. You are not alone.
In this debate, I want to pay particular tribute to our Lord Mayor, Christy Burke and his voluntary team on behalf of all of us, in their work, ministering to the men and women, often very young, who have no home throughout the country.
He is an example to the city and to the country, in what are powerful works of mercy.
I say ‘have no home’ deliberately. Because the terms ‘the homeless’ and ‘homelessness’ have become a kind of anaesthetic, a political or social ‘general absolution’.
As if ‘the homeless’ and homelessness were conditions within our society.
When of course, they are not.
In the early hours of Friday morning, I met returned emigrants, who shook my hand and wished me well.
The young man who thanked me for looking after his sleeping bag while he went off to find and use the facilities nearby.
Men and women with addiction, heroin, methadone or whatever, who were able to find a kind word.
“Only I have to rob. I have to beg. I need it to keep me going, you know?”
I do know. Because last Thursday night into Friday morning was a sobering reflection, for me, as leader of the Government.
The causes of the homelessness we address today are myriad and complex. For our part, Ministers Kelly and Coffey will be doing all they can with new and major co-operation across the departments of social protection, health, children, finance, justice, education and the environment.
We are now spending over €50 million a year on homelessness. We all have a responsibility that our resources and our work are coordinated in the best possible way.
This is why part of the 20 point plan agreed by Government yesterday is to review the homeless sector, service delivery and coordination arrangements early next year.
Crucially, there’s our unprecedented two billion-euro investment in social housing. I accept that this will not happen overnight. There are design, planning, build stages and so on.
However, I believe that there is a willingness by some who will use their expertise in property management and accommodation provision to help alleviate the current bed and housing difficulties. Ministers Kelly and Coffey will work with them.
And when I listen to parents, who are without a home, to a woman and to a man, they say,:
Yes, of course. we need shelter immediately. But shelter is no good to us in the long-term. Our children, our family, need a home, so we can have a life.
And with our two-billion euro investment we will make sure they have that home, that life.
Today, I want to highlight how soul-destroying it is for people in emergency accommodation. I know they are grieving not alone for what they had. More crucially, they are grieving for how they used to be. The privacy, the dignity, the sanctity of their family life.
A few weeks ago, I spoke at a conference on mental health and suicide.
I was heartened that my views drew such a serious and passionate response from practitioners and experts in the area.
The reality is there are hundreds of men and women sleeping rough on our streets because of the disintegration of their interior life. Caused and medicated by, an addiction to drugs or gambling or alcohol. They’re sleeping in the wet and cold because of the breakdown of their lives. Or caused by the break-up of a marriage or a family.
They’re the blue dots on our streets, because of depression, or more serious disturbances, in the mental wellbeing. So finely balanced, and yet that so many of us take so much for granted.
They huddle in doorways, in the eye of CCTV, because they’re just out of prison, or the care of the state. And too often, with nowhere to go.
Or maybe, they’re just emotionally, or psychologically, fragile. Their glue to ‘reality’, or to ‘normality’, removed by the death of a sibling, a parent. Or perhaps they’re paralysed by disappointment. That, because of what they did, or what was done to them, life did not turn out as they had dreamt or imagined.
As Taoiseach, I am deeply concerned about that loneliness haunts so many lives.
I believe the political shift we are seeing in Ireland, and across Europe, has at its heart something far bigger and deeper than just ‘politics’ itself.
In our rush to abandon the architecture we grew up with, and took for granted, we are running away from something for sure. But the question is: what are we running to?
I believe in the years ahead, issues of the ‘self’, the quest for identity, dignity and belonging, will come very much to the fore. As the ground shifts beneath us and we write the new blueprint for a public life, a kinder and more equal society.
And in all of that, it is perfectly clear.
That it is our shared humanity.
Our shared values.
Our shared sense of what constitutes ‘a good life’.
That will define the trust between peoples and their politicians. And between the Irish people and their government.
In Ireland, I believe this will involve resurrecting the ancient sense of Duthracht. The care, the active and responsible connection, with which we attend those around us.
I have to say that sense of Duthracht was palpable on the night with Lord Mayor Christy Burke and the men and women on our streets.
Because what is a bond yield to a man or woman staring back at you through yellow eyes?
What use is a debt-for-equity swap when you’re shaking with dread and cold, afraid to go to a hostel in case you’re attacked or robbed?
What is economic sovereignty when all you want is the next fix, and five minutes of oblivion?
I know for sure that politics of the Right and Left will not equip us for the changes we are to face here at home and all over Europe. The centre must hold.
But just as we need sensible and strong economic policy, we will need also a new human and social chemistry, particularly in the interface of our public and private lives.
I believe our homeless crisis is a kind of autopsy, of our national life, our priorities.
Even when the Cetic Tiger was deafening, men and women were living and dying on our streets.
Mr Jonathan Corrie died on the Dail’s and the nation’s doorstep just a few days ago.
But his death and the manner of it does not make Mr Corrie or his story public property.
In our outpouring of sadness for him, and the way he lived and died, we have to be careful to protect his boundaries.
He was clearly a man of intelligence, depth and insight.
He was also a man of great dignity and I believe we best honour Mr Corrie by acting once and for all on the issue of homelessness. Right now, in emergency shelter, in our long-term housing plan and in addressing the causes of pain and alienation in our society.
To conclude I would like to thank Christy Burke and the men and women I met last Friday morning for the opportunity they gave and the generosity they showed to me as a fellow human being, not just as Taoiseach. I am privileged to be been around with them on the streets.
And have assured them, every one of them, that things will change. I have every faith in Minsters Kelly and Coffey and all concerned to deliver this.
Ends